U.S. Workforce Constrained by Multitasking, Disengagement Reports FuzeBox

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 rolled up newspaper FuzeBox, a cloud-based provider of real-time communications and collaboration services, has announced the results of its survey investigating organizational behavior. Broadly, the study concluded that the hyper-connected nature of the modern social (workplace and personal) environment is creating a distracted and less-efficient workforce. Of the 2,000 workers surveyed, 92 percent admit to multitasking during meetings with 41 percent reporting to doing so “often” or “all the time.” Multitasking has been shown to lower productivity, increase errors, and contribute to stress production.

The amount of time spent in meetings suggests productivity is experiencing a significant drain. Over half of respondents reported to spending between one and three hours per week in meetings with one-third spending between four and 10 hours. Employees also confessed to a participating in a range of multitasking activities during meetings including checking email (69 percent), working on unrelated projects (49 percent), and eating (44 percent).

The survey suggests that the root of the problem is in a lack of face-to-face communication that increases employee accountability while reducing the amount of multitasking. As evidence, the survey cites that 56 percent of multitasking employees do so while on phone conferences but that number drops to 16 percent during in-person meetings and sinks to 4 percent during video conferences. In addition to improving engagement, video conferences also appear to motivate employees to be more prepared with 63 percent responding that they spend more time preparing for video conference calls than other types of meetings.

“Evolving workplace dynamics have created employee engagement and productivity issues that require executive attention in order to optimize individual and organizational performance,” David Obrand, FuzeBox CEO, said.

 

By Joshua Bjerke